It's not news that newspapers are in huge trouble — victims of technological change and a mini-depression. What is news is the unadorned glee that is greeting the demise of newsprint.

When auto or city workers lose their jobs, there's talk of bailouts and extra measures to cushion the trauma, and even mournful country songs written in tribute. And when newspapers close? The blogs are full of self-congratulations at the demise of the journalistic establishment.

"Seeing newspapers fall apart brings me joy," writes an anonymous essayist in a broadside reprinted on the blog Reflections of a Newsosaur. Then there was the throng of commentators on boston.com that rejoiced over news the Boston Globe might close.

Part of this sour reaction is due to the traditional American love of any new futuristic innovation or technology. The past be damned! But a large part of it can be traced back more than 30 years to Richard Nixon. It was he who made hatred of the mainstream press fashionable, and his administration's cultural legacy continues to this day.

Of course, Nixon and his aides weren't the first Oval Office denizens to complain about the press; nor was he the first to accuse journalists of bias. Abraham Lincoln beat him to that punch when he closed border newspapers during the Civil War on the grounds they were too pro-Southern.

And, as it turns out, Nixon later had good reason to loathe the press, since he was eventually dislodged from office in the Watergate scandal in large part because of the solid investigative work of the fourth estate.

But it was Vice-President Spiro Agnew who actually delivered the tirade in 1969 (and who also later left office in disgrace) that launched millions of press haters. In a speech supposedly written by Pat Buchanan, Agnew attacked a "small band of network commentators" who, he charged, were a "tiny and closed fraternity of privileged men, elected by no one." Because of what he called their dedication to the "endless pursuit of controversy," he called on the networks to be "more responsive to the views of the nation and more responsible to the people they serve."

Note that Agnew was specifically attacking the networks — whose licenses come from the government — and not the press as a whole, at least in that speech. Nevertheless, his remarks struck a chord — as did the Nixon administration's continual campaign against "the media" — a term it popularized because it felt "the media" sounded far colder and more distant than "the press."

It wasn't long before the whole conservative movement had taken up the cry that the media establishment was biased against its cause and, by implication, the concerns of Middle America. Whereas liberal populism had once railed against financial titans, conservative populism now targeted editors, publishers, and reporters (among others) as the new dangerous elite.

Die another day Now that the New York Times Company and representatives of the Boston Newspaper Guild, the Boston Globe 's biggest union, have agreed to a deal that will keep the paper alive (more on that in a bit), the great unanswered question becomes: what, exactly, does the Times Co. plan to do now ?

Red all over If there's one group of professionals whose job insecurity rivals that of the Detroit auto worker, it's the men and women who make America's newspapers.

Philadelphia Story The local-media story line of the moment is the push by Stephen Taylor — Milton resident, Yale media lecturer, and former Boston Globe executive VP — to recapture the paper his family ran for more than a century, a goal he's pursuing with the backing of (among others) his cousin Benjamin Taylor, the former Globe publisher.

Fourth-estate follies, 2009 edition Between the rise of the Web, the ADD-addling of America, the fragmentation of any national political consensus, and the devastated economy, working in the press can feel a bit like manning the Titanic — and this year, the entire industry seemed to teeter on the edge of oblivion.

Brave new Globe? Sizing up the Boston Globe 's recent past is easy: simply put, in the past 12 months, the paper has seen enough gut-wrenching drama to change the name of Morrissey Boulevard to Melrose Place. But forecasting the paper's future is another matter.

Through a glass darkly Predicting a Super Bowl winner doesn't make you a genius: after all, given a pool of 32 teams, one of them is bound to capture the trophy. But predicting the future for an industry that's been buffeted by new technologies and economic vicissitudes, and sometimes seems to have all the substance and staying power of sea foam? That's an accomplishment.

Where has all the Gonzo gone? On top of everything else they’ve blighted over their awful eight-year reign, the Bushies did this: they killed Hunter S. Thompson.

Short-sighted? There may, in the end, be no way to save the American metropolitan newspaper. Plummeting advertising revenue and competition from the Internet often seem forces too daunting for even the savviest of publishers.

DEMOCRATS AGAINST OBAMA | November 03, 2010 Now that the midterm wipeout has concluded, analysts are already sizing up the GOP challengers to a weakened Barack Obama. Not only that: some Democratic party elders are considering the once-unthinkable scenario of a debilitating challenge to Barack Obama from inside his party.

THE INDEPENDENT HERD | October 06, 2010 The big news in this election cycle is the rise of the Tea Party. Fair enough. But passing under the radar is an accompanying development that could have even more far-reaching consequences — the rise of an emboldened third force in our politics.

THE AMERICAN IDOL PARTY | September 23, 2010 Sarah Palin and Christine O'Donnell might not turn out to be good candidates, but they make great television.

HAS OBAMA PEAKED? YES, HE HAS | November 12, 2009 To listen to some pundits, Barack Obama's public image began taking a serious beating when the off-year election returns came in a week ago. Or maybe it was the undeserved Nobel Prize, his approach to the war in Afghanistan, or when he revved up his pursuit of national health-care reform.